Early November Tree Skiing Madness!!
On Friday November 3rd, Jay Peak fired up the snow guns on The Jet and Haynes as unseasonably low temperatures continued throughout New England. Jay Peak plans on bumping up their opening to the weekend before the Thanksgiving Holiday and will have plenty of snow to do so, even with the pending warm up next week. All the major players let loose their guns this week to capitalize on a rare shot at prolonged early November snow making. The masses also descended on Jay Peak to capitalize on a chance to ski and ride early season man made snow before the lifts start moving. Where were all these people the past two weeks when Jay had epic late October snow? I have no idea.
While I had prepared myself for Jay to have substantially less snow and worse conditions than my first four days in October, I had not prepared myself for the massive disappearance of snow. Approaching the mountain, Can Am and Power Line (which were both socked with snow last week) bore huge brown spots and disastrously thin cover. The lower slopes at Stateside were no longer skiable nor skinable, so I carried my skis on my pack and began hoofing up Derick Hot Shot.